Chapter III: Part 3

. . . And now, on my table, opened at this unfinished page, I abandon my diary with these last words, which will probably end it: We are off to Paris!

[Picture: The moonlit river]

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[Picture: Creeping through the forest.]

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[Picture: The return journey.]

_Written groping in the dark_.

I have returned . . . Goudeloup is dead . . . Our journey has failed.

_December_ 26_th_.

Ten days! I have only been absent ten days. It seems to me that the multitude of scenes and shadows, the confused and terrible sensations I have brought back from my short journey, are enough to fill several existences. Now that I have returned to the confined space of my Hermitage, all these memories haunt and torment me,—I must try and write them down merely to rid myself of them.

[Picture: Commencing the outward journey]

We started on the night of the sixteenth. A very cold night, without stars, lighted up only by a white sprinkling of hoar-frost. The frosted trees looked like hawthorn bushes flowering before their leaves break forth. We passed through Champrosay, as dismal and silent as the hoar-frost which was falling and lying on its cold roofs, instead of gently melting round the water-spouts by the warmth of the lighted fires. Not a Prussian was to be seen on the horizon, and this was fortunate, as our two outlines stood out distinctly in the great bare plain. I found my boat in a little creek hidden between the banks. It was a very lightly-built Norwegian boat. Having wrapped some rags round the oars, we pushed off noiselessly on the lonely river, knocking now and then against the icicles which float on the surface of the water like blocks of crystal. Many a time, in preceding years, I had embarked on nights as dark and cold to set or visit my night-lines. But what life there was on the river around me! A somewhat mysterious, dreamy sort of life, full of the silence of universal slumber. Long wood rafts, with their fires lighted fore and aft, and shadows standing near the helm, slowly go down towards Paris, gliding by through all the forest shade, and entering Bercy at break of day, in the full glare of a noisy and crowded thoroughfare. On the banks, waggons passed along, the night express train gliding along through the windings of the railway track, like a serpent with eyes of fire. And I pondered over all the sad or joyful motives that set all these people in motion . . . At intervals, by the side of the river, which nearly bathed their walls, the lock-keeper’s house, the ferrymen’s hut, the boatmen’s public-houses, threw the glimmer from their dimmed windows over the still water.

[Picture: Wood rafts of former times]

To-day there is nothing of all this. We have a new river before us, black and solitary, disturbed by all those broken bridges, which change the currents. However, by a few strokes of the oar I was able to direct our little bark, and keep it near enough to the middle of the stream to avoid the submerged islands marked out by the dipping willows . . .

[Picture: “We crossed a heavy punt.”]

—All goes well . . . said Goudeloup in a low voice.

At that moment the noise of an oar thrown into a boat, came from the bank, and a powerful southern voice called through the night:

—Come, ferryman, make haste! . . .

—It is the Draveil doctor, whispered my companion.

I too had recognised the kindly voice, that is heard day and night on highroads and byeways, always encouraging and always hurried. How did he come there? Had he therefore stayed at Draveil? . . . I should have liked to have called out to him: “Good-night, Doctor!” But a moment’s reflection stopped me. A lucky thought, in truth; for directly after we crossed a heavy punt, with a lantern in the bow, passing over from one side of the river to the other; and I saw by the side of dear Doctor R— in his old felt hat, weather-beaten by all the storms of Seine and Oise, some shining helmets.

[Picture: Approaching the railway bridge]

By rare good fortune we were beyond the rays of their lantern, which deepened the shadow through which our boat was gliding, and we passed by unseen. No less danger awaited us a little farther on—the railway bridge, of which three arches were blown up, blocking the river with its gigantic remains. I really hardly know how we were able to get through this fearful barrier in the dark, without being swamped or dashed to pieces. At Port-Courcelles we had the same fear. The enormous gnarled willows of the two islets became in the night so many shoals, that we narrowly escaped. At last we reach Ablon and its lock. Here the cannon round Paris resounds clear and terrible, sending forth at each instant the red flash of its thunder . . . We ought to have expected it: the lock is closed. Fortunately our boat is light, and together we shall be able, as I have so often done, to hoist it on to the bank, and carry it over to the other side of the barrier. We land at the little steps where the innkeeper of Ablon skins his eels on summer days, and where the fishermen sit patiently with their rods, bathed in sunshine from the top of their boating-hats down to their shoes of untanned leather. It is astonishing how a feeling of danger changes the whole aspect of things! . . . When nearly at the top of the steps, I perceived against the darkness, ten paces from me, a sentry on his beat, pacing up and down the quay. Lower down, the lock-keeper’s house, turned into a Prussian outpost, has all its windows lighted up. I wish to go down quickly, re-embark, and gain the other bank; but Goudeloup will not listen to me. His eyes remain obstinately fixed on that shadow which looms through the fog, and whistles while trampling above us. I try to drag him away. He escapes, makes one bound . . . I hear a dull sound, a smothered cry, the rattle of arms, and the heavy fall of a man.

[Picture: The wrecked railway bridge] —Twenty-two! . . . says Goudeloup, slipping, quite out of breath, down the slope.

But the unfortunate soldier, that he has left stretched out by the river-side, has found strength before dying to fire his gun. The sharp report rouses both banks of the river. Impossible to land. We quickly push out into the middle of the stream, and row hard up the river. It is all like a bad dream. The wind and current, everything is against us. A boat pushes off from the lock, coming straight at us, lighted by a torch which dips up and down as it watches for us, while another boat approaches us in a contrary direction.

—To the dredger . . . whispers Goudeloup in my ear.

[Picture: On the steps by the lock]

Near us, moored some fifty or sixty feet from the shore, a dredging-boat reared its black mass above the water, with its barrels and bucket-chain to clear away the sand. The Seine was very high, and the water half covered it, dashing against its bows with vehemence.

We board her, but in our haste to take refuge on this wreck we forget to fasten our boat, which floats off with the rugs and provision it contains. This saves us. Five minutes later a formidable “hurrah” tells us the Prussians have just found our boat. Seeing it empty, they must have thought we were drowned, engulfed; for a few moments after, the torches returned to the shore, and the whole river resumed its silence and darkness . . .

[Picture: Swimming to the dredger]

The dredger on which we found ourselves was a complete wreck—a curious shelter, crackling and creaking all over, and furiously lashed by the waters. On the deck, covered with splinters of wood and pieces of cast iron, the cold was intolerable. We were obliged to take refuge in the engine-room, to which the water happily had not yet penetrated. It would soon, however, reach it, for in several places the sides of the room were cracked almost down to the level of the waves, and we found ourselves lighted by the leaden reflection of the darkness on the water. What gloomy hours we spent there! Hunger, fear, and the terrible cold numbing our limbs with a feeling of drowsiness against which we were obliged to struggle . . . All around, the water seethed, the wood groaned, the bucket-chain creaked in its rustiness, and aloft, above our heads, something like the rag of a drenched flag flapped in the wind. We impatiently waited for daybreak, not knowing exactly what distance separated us from the land, nor how we should be able to reach it. In our fitful slumbers, broken as they were by anxious thoughts of escape, the shaking of the dredging-boat and the sound of the water surrounding us, gave me at times the impression of a long voyage and a stormy night at sea . . .

When through the holes in the room, which were blackened and torn as if by a bombardment, we saw the river catch the first light of a sullen winter’s morning, we tried to make out our position. The slopes of Juvisy commanded the farther bank, rising above the fog, which its tall trees pierced with their bare tops. On the opposite shore, eighty or a hundred feet beyond the dredger, lay the flat, bare plains of Draveil, stretching away into the far distance, without trace of a soldier on them. Evidently that was the side we could escape by. The anticipation of a cold bath, in the month of December, in that deep, foaming, and swift-running water, was rather terrifying. However, the iron chain that moored the dredger to the bank was happily still fastened to its ring, and we had the resource left of clinging to it and being guided by it. While we were discussing this, a cannon was fired off rather close at hand, from the heights of Juvisy, followed up immediately by the whistle of a shell and its splash in the water near us. A few seconds later, before we had recovered from our astonishment, a second shell fell near the dredger. Then I understood the flag, the splinters of wood, the pieces of cast iron, and the smell of burnt powder we had noticed in the cabin. The Prussians were using the old dredger as a target for their cannons. It was absolutely necessary to quit at once. The cold and the dangers of the river sank into insignificance. Forward we must go. I seized hold of the chain with both hands and lowered myself rapidly into the river, Goudeloup following me. Our fingers were skinned by the chafing iron: we advanced but slowly, numbed by the current and the icy water. A fresh cannon-shot redoubles our energy. Look out! Here comes the shell. This time it falls full on the iron-plated front of the dredger, bursts, and covers us with the wreckage. I hear behind me a deep sigh . . . No, never shall I forget the last agonising motion of that chain, which I felt move, struggle for a second, and then rise up quickly in the water, loose, free, and light in my hands . . .

[Picture: They get into the river again] I turned round; no one to be seen. Nothing but a mass of blood floating away on the stream. The unfortunate fellow must have been struck on the head and killed on the spot . . . A feeling of intense despair overcame me. My companion slaughtered beside me, and I helpless to succour him . . . A little more and I too must have let go the chain; but the instinct of life won the day, and a few minutes later I landed on the bank, but to get no farther. After a dozen steps, overcome by the anxiety, fatigue, and terrible cold which penetrated through all my wet clothes, I dropped down by the roadside on the dry grass of a ditch. The well-known trot of a horse, the roll of an old cabriolet, and the kind voice of Doctor R— drew me from my lethargy.

—What! it is you? . . . What are you doing there?

Quick as lightning, he wrapped me up in his cloak, hid me in the straw under the apron of the carriage, and set off in the direction of Draveil, where the excellent man has turned his house into a hospital. From the cabriolet I passed into the coach-house. There, dry clothes and a few glasses of hot grog soon revived me. I remained there till nightfall, without daring to move, understanding very well, although the Doctor had never told me, the risk he was incurring by receiving me. The house was full of soldiers and hospital attendants. Military boots resounded on the pavement of the small courtyard. And all around, the loud laughter, the swords clashing, and the harsh German speech, still more accentuated by its insolent tone. I heard all this with my eyes shut, stupefied by the sensation of comfort, with a vague recollection of past danger and of the cold river, and poor Goudeloup’s heart-rending groan ringing in my ears.

At night the Doctor came to set me free, and took me to the room generally occupied by his grandchildren, whom he had sent away on the approach of the Prussians. It was there that I awoke the next morning. After the horrible scenes of the previous day, those three little cribs, with white muslin curtains round them, the children’s toys lying scattered on the floor with their lesson-books, even the faint medicinal smell that came from a cupboard in which the Doctor kept some drugs, everything calmed and soothed my over-excited nerves. In a neighbouring yard a cock crowed and a donkey began braying. The village seemed to awaken. Suddenly a bugle-call, rudely jarring on these peaceful sounds, recalled the sad reality. Then there was coming and going to and fro; doors banged . . . I drew near the window. The Doctor’s house looked into the street, over the flower-beds of a narrow strip of garden in front of it. Every one knew his house, with its round brass bell-knob standing out brightly on the freshly white-washed wall; and the furniture in the little parlour, which could be seen on the ground-floor, gave it an appearance of homely comfort. Hidden behind the closed blinds, I saw the street full of men in forage-caps falling into line, calling, numbering each other, ready to start. Among the caps, several Bavarian helmets appeared. These were quartermasters running from house to house, chalking down the numbers on the doors, preparing quarters for the advancing forces. Soon the departing regiment moved off to the sound of their drums, while opposite, at the entrance to the village, the Bavarian buglers noisily entered. During the last three months the unhappy village had been in this condition. The straw of the encampments had not time to grow cold between the departure of one regiment and the arrival of another . . .

[Picture: Being picked up by the Doctor]

The Doctor, who just then came into the room, made me leave the window.

—Take care, Mr. Robert; do not show yourself. There is at the _Commandatur_ a list of the inhabitants who have remained in the country, and we are all closely watched. After eight o’clock in the evening, nobody except myself is allowed to go outside their house . . . So many Prussians have been murdered in the neighbourhood! Draveil pays the penalty. Their requisitions are three times heavier here than elsewhere. The least word, and they imprison; the slightest show of rebellion, and they shoot. Our unhappy peasants are terrified. They spy and inform about each other; and if one of them perceived that I was hiding some one in my house, he would be capable—to spare himself a requisition—of warning the _Commandatur_. What would be the fate of both of us, I can easily imagine . . .

He was so afraid of any imprudence on my part, poor dear Doctor, that all the time I stayed in his house he kept the key of my room in his pocket. The latticed shutters and closed windows threw a prison gloom over my room, that only gave me light enough to read by. I had medical works, a few odd volumes translated from the Panckoucke series, and from time to time a copy of a French paper published by the Prussians at Versailles. That also was written in a foreign kind of French, and our real or imaginary defeats were sneeringly described with coarse and stupid jokes.

When I could no longer read, I looked out through the blinds into the street—the real old-fashioned street of a country town. Straight rows of houses with little gardens and a pavement in front, the spaces between them filled with a trellis-work of branches, or the trunk of a great elm, and a background of plain and vineyard scarcely hidden by the low roofs. Then sheds and stables, a fountain spouting out of an old wall, the large gateway of a farm, side by side with the notary’s white and clean little house, ornamented with escutcheons. And over all the cruel blight of the invasion. Knitted jerseys drying on the iron gates and on the shutters. Large pipes protruding from every window, and military boots. Never had I heard the sound of so many boots . . . Opposite my window was the _Commandatur_. Every day peasants were brought in, urged along by butt-ends of rifles or the scabbards of swords. The women and children followed weeping, and while the man was dragged inside, they remained at the door explaining their case to the soldiers, who, with closed lips, listened disdainfully or else laughed with a stupid brutal laughter. No hope of pity or justice. All depended on the caprice of the conqueror. They were so well aware of it, these unfortunate peasants, that they hardly dared stir out or show themselves, and when they did venture into the street, it was heart-rending to see them creeping under the walls, glancing out of the corner of their eyes, bowed down, obsequious and servile, like Eastern Jews.

It was a cruel sight to see the ambulances stop at our door in the wind, cold, rain, and snow; to hear the groans of the sick and wounded being removed from the carts and borne in helpless. When evening came, to end the long melancholy days, the Prussian bugles sounded the retreat under the leafless elm trees, with its slowly marked time, and its last three notes thrown out like the weird screech of a night-bird at the approach of night. This was the moment when the Doctor, muddy and tired, entered my room. He himself brought my food, and, with his usual good nature, told me all he had done—about his visits, the hearsays from Paris and from the provinces, about the sick people brought to him, and his disputes with the Prussian major, who was his colleague in command of the hospital, and whose German pedantry annoyed and exasperated him. We talked in sad low tones, and then the kind man bade me good-night. Once more alone, I softly opened my window to breathe the fresh air for a few minutes. In spite of the bitter cold, it did me good. In its peaceful slumbers the country seemed to return to its former condition and resumed the aspect of its happier days. But soon the step of a patrol, the groan of a wounded man, the sound of the cannon thundering on the horizon, brought me back to the reality, and I retired into my prison, full of hatred and anger. At the end of a short time this cellular kind of existence in the midst of the army of occupation became intolerable. Having lost all hope of entering Paris, I regretted my Hermitage. There, at least, I had solitude and Nature. I was not tempted there, as I was here, to interfere in the injustices, brutalities, and constant vexations going on in the street, thereby running the risk of compromising my kind host. Therefore I resolved upon leaving.

[Picture: Robert, peering from his window]

To my great surprise, the Doctor did not even try to dissuade me from my project.

—You are quite right, he said quietly; you will be safer over there.

Since, on reflection, I have always fancied that some neighbour may have seen me behind the lattice, and that my host, although he would not admit it, feared they would betray me. We therefore decided that I should leave Draveil the next day, in the same manner in which I arrived. When it was quite dark, I went down into the stable. I hid myself in the straw of the cabriolet, the Doctor’s cloak was thrown over me, and we started off. The journey was accomplished without accident. Every hundred and fifty or two hundred yards was a sentry-box erected by the roadside at the expense of the district.

—_Wer da_? challenged the sentry, cocking his rifle.

The Doctor answered:

—_Lazareth_!

And the little gig continued its jingling rattle over the stones. At the edge of the forest he stopped. The road was clear. I hastily jumped out.

—Take this, said the kind man, holding out a basket full of food and bottles . . . Shut yourself up, and do not stir out . . . I will come and see you soon.

Thereupon he whipped up his horse, and I threw myself into the thicket. A quarter of an hour later, I was at the Hermitage.

[Picture: Being challenged by a sentry]

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[Picture: Hungry birds come for food]

_January_ 3_rd_.

. . . A fine drifting snow has been falling for the last few days. The forest is completely covered. Around me the silence was so deep that I could even hear the fall of the thickening flakes. It is impossible to go out. I watch the snow falling from the murky sky and whitening all things. The famished birds come to my very doorstep. The roedeer have taken refuge in the stable in place of my poor Colaquet, of whom I have heard nothing…

[Picture: Deer sheltering in the stable]

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[Picture: “They blew out his brains with a revolver.”]

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[Picture: Robert hears bad news from the Doctor]

_January_ 10_th_.

. . . The Doctor came to see me. Bad news: Paris still shut up, disasters in the provinces! The conquerors, worn out by such a tardy victory, redouble the humiliations and brutalities . . . At Draveil, on Christmas night, five or six Bavarians, after sitting up late drinking with old Rabot, the forester, in a public-house, blew out his brains with a revolver. The unhappy man’s brother, who lived opposite, ran in on hearing the report of the shot, and in his turn fell mortally wounded. Another man of the same family was seriously wounded. The wretches would have massacred all comers! The affair created a great sensation: a fictitious inquiry was made, and concluded by the district of Draveil being condemned to pay an indemnity of _sixteen hundred pounds_ to the Bavarians! . . .

[Picture: Bavarian preparing for the party]

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[Picture: Game-shooting party in the forest]

_January_ 15_th_.

. . . This morning the Prince of Saxony’s staff had a large shooting-party in the forest. On hearing the firing so near me, I was seized with a terrible anxiety. I thought it was the arrival of some French advanced-guard; but from the windows of the studio overlooking the woods, I saw between the leafless branches, crowds of beaters wearing the Saxon forage-caps running and shouting through the thickets, while plumed and gilded sportsmen watched at every turn of the drives. In the circle round the _Great Oak_ an enormous bivouac-fire blazed in front of a tent. Here, called by a flourish of trumpets, the shooters came to breakfast. I heard the clinking of glasses, the uncorking of bottles, and the cheering of the revellers. Then the slaughter of deer and pheasants recommenced. Ah! if old Guillard had been there! he who kept such an account of his game, watched over his coveys and his rabbit-holes, knew the favourite haunts of the deer. How he would have grieved to see this sacrilege! The bewildered birds knew not where to seek safety from the cruel guns. The startled hares and rabbits ran under the legs of the sportsmen, and in the midst of all the confusion a wounded deer took refuge in the courtyard of the Hermitage. The eyes of hunted animals have a look of piteous astonishment which is truly heart-rending. This one excited my compassion, pressing against the low wall round the well, sniffing the air, and pawing the ground with its little bleeding feet. My indignation redoubled against the plundering race that swarmed over vanquished France with the voracity of locusts, destroying its vineyards, its houses, its cornfields, its forests, and, when the country was laid bare, exterminating even the game, leaving nothing alive.

[Picture: “I heard the clinking of glasses.”]

I shall never forget that day’s sport in the midst of the war, under that dark, lowering sky, with the landscape whitened with hoar-frost, and the glitter of the gold on the helmets and the hunting-horns passing beneath the branches; while the galloping of the horses, the who-hoops of the men, reminded me of the Black Huntsman in the German ballads. At dusk, lines of carts came to gather up from the edge of the roads all the wounded and dying game. It was like the evening after a battle.

[Picture: Taking home the day’s spoils]

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[Picture: Depressed troops after the capitulation.]

_January_ 19_th_.

…They have fought all day under the walls of Paris. But the noise of the mitrailleuses was not so distinct as on the 2nd of December. There was something in the sound of that distant battle which gave me the impression of lassitude and discouragement.

_January_ 30_th_.

…All is over. Paris has capitulated. The armistice is signed.

[Picture: Abandoned equipment]

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LAST LEAFLETS.

[Picture: Robert finishing his Diary]

I end here my diary, in which I have tried to give the experiences of my five months of solitude. To-day I returned to Draveil in the Doctor’s carriage, but without hiding this time. The roads were full of peasants returning home. Many are already at work again on the land. All faces are sad, but no complaints are heard. Is it fatalism or resignation?

The Prussians still occupy the village, enforcing their triumph with cool insolence. They, however, appear less brutal with the inhabitants. I saw some walking about hand-in-hand with little children. It was like the beginning of a return to their forsaken hearths, to their sedentary lives, so long disturbed by this war . . . When I came home in the evening, I saw on the doorstep of the keeper’s house, old Guillard’s widow, dressed in deep mourning and hardly recognisable. Poor woman! her husband dead and her home a wreck. Her misfortunes are complete. I heard her weeping as she tried to put in order the remains of her household goods.

[Picture: Papers] Silence reigns at the Hermitage. It is a clear night and the air is balmy. Already the presence of spring is beginning to be felt under the fast melting snow. The forest will soon bud forth, and I shall watch to see the grass blades pushing aside the dead leaves. From the distant quiet plains rises a misty vapour like the smoke of an inhabited village; and if anything can impart consolation after a cruel war, it is this repose of all Nature and mankind, this universal calm which rests upon a shattered country—a country recruiting its strength by sleep, forgetful of the lost harvest in preparing for that of the future!

[Picture: Commencing tilling the fields]

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[Picture: Publisher’s Logo]